Let us know who you are and what kind of business you are interested in.

31 responses total.

This response has been erased.

Hi.  I'm Scott.  I used to have a little bedroom-corner business in
electronics, building things like bass guitar preamps.  I probably ended up
losing money, but it was very educational.

I'm Colleen McGee.  I've been a self-employed marketing consultant and
business "therapist" since 1982.  I was also an instructor in the joint
Chamber of Commerce/WCC Entrepreneurial Certification Program for many years.
I work with medium or small companies, many of which are cooperatively
organized.  I also teach a series of seminars on personal and communitarian
entrepreneurship.  I'll try to stay active in this conference, but if you feel
like emailing me a question, I'll be glad to answer offline as well.  

Nat Siddall.  I've been a career student for quite a while, and it is a
good life, but coming to an end.  I'd like to turn into a free-lance
business researcher, and keep my life pretty much as it has been.  Maybe I
should call myself an economic data consultant.  Also, at some point, I'd
like to try my hand at small scale importing.  I'm kind of an Asia
specialist. 

Steve Weiss. I've never really been self-employed. I don't think I have what
it takes to make as much money that way as I can by working on a large team
for a small to mid-sized company, and that's what I do.

However, in 1990, on a lark, I wrote a program and decided it would be
interesting and new to sell it as shareware. I have never worked very hard
at promoting it, and I would have made a great deal more money with it if I
had chosen the PC platform instead of the Mac, but I did learn a lot. I still
sell spider for the mac, and fill out all the IRS forms (C and SE) needed to
stay legal. I often wonder how many shareware authors declare their income.
Ah but I digress. Shareware is a very tiny sideline for me, but it is there.

I've been a freelance writer and web-site developer for nearly two years now.
I wish I'd had the guts to do this sooner.  Working for myself suits me to
a tee.  At least it does right now; I'm wondering how I'll do when the economy
next turns down.

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Hi, I have been self-employed/free-lance/independent contractor since about
1971 (a summer 'job').  I am a science translator.  While starting out, I was
also a part-time house painter, but slowly you acquire new clients and get
to the point where you actually have to turn down a bit of work.  I work at
home, started the business on a $5 manual typewriter, upgraded to a $150 used
electric typewriter, and in 1985 bought my first (and still only) computer,
which is now worth about $25.  The business has really changed with computers,
modems, and more recently fax machines, and now e-mail.  Since December all
my translation agencies now want files e-mailed instead of modemed.  I got
involved with grex because I needed a way to e-mail binary files.  My
accounting system consists of one ledger book and two sets of file cards. 
I tried computerizing but one year lost all my info when changing to a new
version of DOS in December.  Time for breakfast (it has been a busy day).

Interesting!  What languages do you translate?  I needed a Japanese
translation once, and called some agency.  They were going to charge me a
staggering sum--I forget what it was, but it was really a lot, for one
little thing.  Luckily I found a classmate who could do it for me.  But he
wasn't trained in economics, so he could only translate about halfway, and
then I could take over and complete the translation with proper use of
jargon.

Eastern European, mostly Slavic, also a bit of Albanian and Romanian.  I can
put you directly in touch with translators rather than agencies, which will
cut your cost in half and maybe get you a better result, if you can work with
the translator.  If you only need a general idea rather than something for
publication, it can be even cheaper (by the hour, or have the person just skim
through while you are on the phone together).  Yes, the biggest problem is
not the language but the subject.  I translate life sciences, preferably. 
When I hit law or business I need help.

I am a multi-level marketer for ACN, which sells long distance telephone
service for LCI.  See classified #811  for more information.  I also eat
alphabet soup (sigh).  On the side I do web page design and consulting.  
 
Right now Hawaii was ranked as having the weakest economy of the 50 states
by Moodys, so I'm the Campaign Manager of William P. Hols who's running for
Hawaii State House District 22.

Time to reintroduce myself...

I'm Scott, and my new business is in fixing music electronics.  This is sort
of what I was doing years ago, but with the focus on fixing rather than
creating.  I'm doing this as sanity work after burning (almost) out on
computer programming.  Right now I'm just getting started by repairing gear
for a local music store.

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If you need more practice stop by Kiwanis Mon or Thurs (let us know to expect
you, we are not always there).  Nothing to lose by trying to fix some of our
stuff.  We have a receiver that sometimes powers on, and sometimes lights up
but has no sound, and sometimes also has sound.  Etc.

What time are you usually there on Mondays?  I have an old stereo I'd
like to donate.  I'd even take a whack at fixing stuff, too.

Hiya, I may as well re-activate this item.  I'm Chris Grant, I recently
closed down a consulting business that required a lot of travel, and somehow
I started making web sites.  I'm happy to say that web site development uses
a lot of disparate skills I've picked up over the years, so I think I will
stick with this awhile.  I think a small business needs to offer quality,
price, and timeliness to succeed against the big guys (remember the joke,
"pick any two"?).  Well, my problem is timeliness ... I have too many clients
and I fall behind.  I'm already sharing things with one terrific person and
need to find others or find out ways to avoid this in the first place.

This response has been erased.

Hi!  My name is Lori.  I am in the begining stages of starting my new
business, Alpine Bookkeeping and Business Services.  In my business, I do
bookkeeping for small businesses who either can't afford or don't need a full
time bookkeper.  I will be available on an as needed basis be it one time only
or several times a week.

I wil also be available to work on special projects, marketing plans and
implementation, budgeting or anything else a business may need to do.

My big problem right now, is my price scale.  I am planning on charging $15
and hour if I use the client's computer or $20 an hour if I use my own.  I
figure I will start out conservetivly and after I build up a client base, I
will charge new clients more.

As small business owners, do you feel that my prices are fair for the types
of services I am offering?  

I'd say you are somewhat low for southeast Michigan.  But that's not relevant
in your area.  Personally, Id' ask friends what they are paying for this kind
of service.  Or you could just make some pohone calles to other bookkeeping
services and ask what their rates are.  

Actually, there are no businesses like mine in my area which is why everyone
I talk to (including small business owners) think there is a big need for my
service.  I feel that if I start conservativly for my first few clients, my
reputation will allow me to charge more with future clients.  Northern
Michigan is different than southeast Michigan of course.  I have talked to
a few accountants in the area  and they think I am priced a little on the
conservative side too.

I still say your prices are way too low.  This is especially true if, as you
say, there are no other businesses like yours in the area.  As to your pricing
strategy, I think the opposite is true. Your first clients will tell others
what you charge and those clients will expect to pay the same low price.

Yes, I agree about the pricing strategy.  In fact, the technique I've used
when I have to raise prices is to announce the new price to everyone, then
confidentially keep it at the current price for old clients for 6 months. 
I ask them, in return, to quote the new price when they are recommending me
to others.  

It is better to start just a bit high, and deliver extraordinary service, than
to try to raise prices sooner than a year after you start.  Raising prices
more than once a year will lose you clients.  So you either lose money because
you have underpriced services, or because you have unhappy clients.  Either
way, you'd have been better off to start high.

My landlord also raises the rent first on newly vacant apartments, then for
those of us who are already there, with a few months warning and an apology.
I raise my rates to match percentage rent increases.

I'm not sure if anybody still reads this conference, but...

I'm Steve.  I've been doing network engineering work for ISPs for several
years, and recently got laid off from a big multinational phone company that
is losing way too much money.  Since I got a large severance package, had some
savings, and was feeling rather burned out on what I was doing anyway, I'm
trying to set up a consulting business.  My goal is to do the sorts of things
that ISP engineering departments tend not to do very well -- developing
process to follow when something happens rather than panicing every time,
network documentation, dealing with interconnection between networks (helping
the various Asian networks that have spent lots of money on expanding their
networks into US peering points actually make use of that connectivity, for
example), and so forth.

I started working on this a couple weeks ago, and so far I've been spending
lots of time telling various well connected people about what I'm doing,
bouncing ideas off people, developing a web page (that still needs a lot of
work), and things like that.  My only project so far is for a non-profit
research organization that won't pay much if at all, but I've got time and
it should be both interesting and good for building contacts.  I can afford
to give this a couple more months and see if it goes anywhere, and if not
still be able to back out and do something else.  Other than buying a new
computer (which I'd need to do anyway), this business doesn't cost me much
to run.

For the moment, I'm being rather uncreative and calling the business Steve
Gibbard Consulting.  The web page is at http://www.gibcons.com.

Depending on your financial state or goals this downtime might be a good
opportunity to get a degree - that's something a lot of pointy-haired budget
people like to see.

Steve,
I have some contacts with an Indian firm called Logiciel that is in reality,
pretty much a wholely owned subsidiary of an Ann Arbor not for profit called
Community Systems Foundation.  After a decade of working with UNICEF, they
just got tapped to implement their software system for the whole UN.  They
are in 67 countries alreadyd, including China, and are going for the other
60 or so UN countries over the next few years.  T

Their need is not so much in software, but in tweaking the software for
(sometimes abysmal) field operations.  Right now they are moving from
individual implementations on CD to web based implementations, with all that
that means.

They need people willing to travel all over the world helping train the
country-level trainers, and adapt the system.  Extra languages like Spanish,
French, Dara (Afgahnistan), Arabic, Mandarin, etc are useful.  

Dari is spokenin Afghanistan, not Dara.  I had a friend who spoke it.

The government of Afghanistan prefers to have it spelled Dara on the
documentation and posters about the software.

I had not heard that before, thanks.  My friend also spoke Pashtu.

Colleen, that sounds like not quite my specialty, but absolutely fascinating.
I'd love to get some more information about it.  I speak French, but not any
of those other languages.

Hi I'm a new business type person here.

I'm forming a virtual company to build a web sports calendar.  And I build
homes and offices out on my land near Austin, Texas.

I also do web hosting.

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